The German middle finger

 

My blog entry  Sour Krauts  has ambled off the tracks so here's the latest on the German approach  to Covid. #visitberlin , a tourism board, insults the public/anti-maskers .

 Oct 17

I never heard of Currywurst, but German fast food restaurant Herman Ze German on Monday announced the closure of its London outlets, which specializes in it. 

Nov 21

 One  participant  in the protests against the latest German covid law restrictions wore a face mask with the words "Merkel-Muzzle," Many of the pro-law legislators are upset that there law is being compared to  the Enabling Act of 1933 that paved the way towards Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, as if they're being nicer about restricting rights.

Dec 13

AfD's #AliceWeidel on the pandemic: It has served to "accelerate and worsen" existing trends, such as the "mainstreaming" of political correctness.

Jan 22, 2021

I wonder why #Navalny returned to Russia where he is being held in Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow. They imprisoned  him for failing to report regularly under the terms of a suspended sentence while he was recovering in Germany and for libeling a WW2 veteran. His current detention has  increased pressure on Germany to halt a Russian gas pipeline.

Feb 7, 2021

#Stasi operation , "Aktion Licht" (Light Mission),  was conducted in  a few days January 1962 to fill the GDR  coffers with foreign currency by securing state ownership of valuable paintings, silverware, postage stamps, porcelain and stocks.   Here's one of the tactics:  the implementation of an exorbitant tax for owners of works of art in East Germany, and the confiscation of that property if the taxes weren't paid.

March 4, 2021

BFV, Germany’s intelligence agency, opened an investigation into the AFD as a potential threat to the constitutional order, which is vague enough to make one wonder if this is a political hit. If the BFV has proof  of actual threats , other than we think they're too far right, then spell it out clearly. This type of investigation into a political group elected to the federal parliament is without precedent in the country’s  recent history and could remind some of  a Hitleresque move in the 1930s.

June 9, 2021

 As NATO forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, Germany plans to send more than 22,500 liters of beer home along with its 1,100 troops

June 14, 2021

Some members of the The Green Party in Germany want their chancellor candidate to run the country, but don't want the word German used in their campaign slogans . It's one of many reasons for their recent slide in polling numbers.

Aug 8, 2021

On July 20, 2021 a court in Berlin ruled against Saxony-Anhalt's  block on a fee increase arguing that the funding of public broadcasting could not be jeopardized, especially in times of "increasingly complex information on the one hand, and of one-sided representations, filter bubbles, fake news and deep fakes on the other hand."  So the court  is also saying that public broadcasting is free of bias. WOW!!!!!

And this week a federal court upheld the ruling.

Oct, 1, 2021

Ms Furchner (96) , a former secretary of an SS commander  of  the #Stutthof concentration camp, was nabbed after taking a taxi to skip her trial as a juvenile  for WW2 war crimes. The case against her relies on German legal precedent that anyone who helped Nazi death camps and concentration camps function can be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders committed there, even without evidence of participation in a specific crime.

Nov  21, 2021

Austrian Chancellor Schallenberg's lockdown on 8.9 million Austrians starts tomorrow. Citizens will not be allowed to leave home except to go to work, shop for essentials and exercise for 20 days with a plan evaluation after 10 days.

Next, there are plans for making vaccination against COVID-19 mandatory in the country beginning February 1, 2022.  Hitler, who was born in Austria, is laughing in his grave.

Jan 22, 2022

Germany keeps proving it's in Putin's pocket by blocking Estonia from providing German-origin military support to Ukraine.

May 24, 2022

I haven't looked at the Krauts in awhile.  Germany is negotiating gas field exploration  in Senegal.

Polish energy group Unimot is expanding international trading as it seeks to import diesel to German via a terminal in Denmark.

June 27, 2022

Vienna, Austria topped the list of most-livable cities in an annual index published by The Economist, which used stability, health care, culture environment, education, and infrastructure to create the rankings. I'm unsure how one measures stability.

July 2, 2022

Food for thought from history: Some view Germany's occupation of Ukraine in 1918 as little more than expansion under a cloak of self-determination with priorities to extract grain and raw materials.

July 4, 2022

Looking back to summer of 1848 in Austria:  Political uncertainty and a reduction in demand caused by a steady flight of the well-to-do from Vienna.  Or perhaps Count Hubner caught the mood: " in the streets one meets only slovenly students, national guards struggling with their sabers, proletarians, and low-class whores"

July,15, 2022

Some German cities have banned the song "Layla". However, it's not the tune of the same name by Eric Clapton. It's a tune by Ballerman about a lustful brothel madam named Layla.

July 31, 2022

 Starting October 1: Gas customers in Germany will have to pay a "solidarity levy" of €0.05 per kilowatt hour to prop up gas importers affected by Russian cutbacks. 

Aug 25, 2022

Autobahn turns 90!

The A555, Germany's first intersection-free motor road, was opened in August,1932 between Cologne and Bonn. Construction began during the Weimar Republic. 

In 1933 Hitler cranked up this type of road project construction.

Oct 8, 2022

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Berlin on Monday, but no joint news conference will occur after the meeting. Too bad because that would be interesting.

Dec 3, 2022

Germany's confectionery industry has produced 169 million Christmas chocolates and Santa Claus miniatures in 2022, which represents a 5.6% increase over 2021. Just keeping it fun this morning!